Computers have become commonplace in our lives, being found in our homes and workplaces as well as a growing variety of public places such as libraries, airports, cafes, and so forth. As people have become more reliant on computers, their desire to use computers wherever they may happen to be has also grown. For example, when users are traveling away from their home or office, they frequently desire to access programs and/or data that they are accustomed to accessing from their home or office. However, this is problematic because users cannot rely on their desired programs being available on computers away from their home or office, much less on their desired data being available on computers away from their home or office.
One solution that can be used to solve these problems is for users to purchase and travel with a portable computer. Portable computers, however, have additional problems in that they can be bulky and heavy to travel with, expensive to purchase, and can make the user a target for theft.
Another solution that can be used to solve these problems is for users to take their hard drive with them when they travel. Such a solution can also be problematic because it requires a significant amount of effort to open and disconnect the hard drive from their computer as well as install the hard drive in another computer, leaves their computer without the hard drive and thus typically unusable, raises compatibility issues because significant reconfiguration may be required for the hard drive to work on the other computer, and can raise legal issues because the user may not be permitted to open and tamper with computers in public places.
Another solution that can be used to solve at least part of these problems is to store data to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash memory device. These USB flash memory devices have become increasingly commonplace and plug into a USB port on a computer. Such a USB device allows a user to transfer data from one computer to the USB device, then plug the USB device into another computer and access the data on the USB device. Such USB devices, however, solve only part of the problem because they are commonly used only for storing data. If the computer that the user is using does not have the proper program, then the data is typically not accessible to the user in a useful form.
Another solution that can be used to solve at least part of these problems is for the user to travel with the program on disc (typically CD or DVD), and if the program is not available on the computer he or she is using, then the user can install the program on that computer. This solution, however, solves only part of the problem because such a disc typically would not have the user's data stored on it. Furthermore, this solution has additional problems because the discs are somewhat fragile and could be damaged during travel, the process of installing the program on the computer can be time-consuming (and even more time-consuming if the program is incompatible with other programs running on the computer), the user may not have sufficient usage privileges on the computer to install the program, such installation onto multiple computers will oftentimes violate the licensing agreement for the program, and the owner of the computer (particularly in public locations) typically will not want people installing their own programs onto the computer. Yet another problem with this solution is that when the user uninstalls the program on the computer, various unused registration information, data, and so forth is oftentimes left behind.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have an improved way for users to travel from computer to computer and easily use their desired programs, and optionally their desired data.